Raise the roof, y’all: Architects’ rap video a minor sensation on YouTube

Raise the roof, y’all: Architects’ rap video a minor sensation on YouTube
Raise the roof, y’all: Architects’ rap video a minor sensation on YouTube

Raise the roof, y’all: Architects’ rap video a minor sensation on YouTube

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After making its debut at the American Institute of Architects convention in Denver last week, the above music video of bespectacled architects rapping about their profession is now a YouTube favorite.

“I Am an Architect” has rung up close to 150,000 views since it was uploaded a week ago. The two men in the three-minute video are unnamed, but the production was created by YKK AP America, a Georgia company that designs, engineers and manufactures complex fenestration systems.

The company is part of Tokyo industrial giant YKK, a company whose initials are stamped on untold millions of zippers across the planet.

Set to a hip-hop beat, the rap — “I picture Frank Lloyd Wright, while you think I’m Mike Brady; and engineers devour our work and call us crazy” — won’t make you forget Talib Kweli, but they’re fun.

The intersection between rap and architecture isn’t quite as unusual at it might seem. Consider this bit from PBS educational show 3-2-1 Contact from way back in 1987:

In 2012, the marketing department at architecture firm SmithGroupJJR made this one for kicks and giggles:

And my favorite, Ted Kamp’s “Mies van der Rohe” from 2007. It’s not rap, but the hook is a monster: